This invention relates to copiers and more particularly, to an electro-optical fingerprint photocopier to make accurate copies of the impressions of the fingerprints of a person.
A conventional procedure of fingerprinting for identification purposes utilizes ink, an ink pad, a roller and a chart to get an impression of the finger ridges. Typically each of the fingers of the fingerprinted person, in turn, are immersed in a wet ink and rolled across a flat white surface, usually paper, which receives and holds the fingerprint impression. This is a relatively slow and uncomfortable process in which both the operator and the fingerprinted person stain their hands with ink.
Additionally, the amount of ink applied to the fingers and transferred to the white surface is difficult to control. Inadequate or excessive inking frequently fails to record details of the fingerprints. Likewise, the amount of pressure applied to the fingers while making the impressions can cause smearing of the ink, inadequate ink transfers to the impression or distortion of the fingerprint. These difficulties and others require that the operator be both trained and experienced and repeated attempts to obtain a complete set of usable fingerprints are common.
There is thus a growing need for an accurate and easy-to-use fingerprint copier and recorder to improve and accelerate the fingerprinting procedure for identification purposes. Such an apparatus should have the capability of reducing the time to record the finger impressions.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a fingerprint copier that accurately copies in color or black and white a fingerprint impression.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an electro-optical fingerprint copier that automatically positions a film chart during the fingerprinting process at the command of the operator thereby reducing the fingerprinting time.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an electro-optical fingerprint copier that copies the fingerprint impressions on a film chart thereby eliminating the use of ink during fingerprinting.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an electro-optical fingerprint copier that generates a fingerprint image into a flat image thereby making unnecessary to roll over the finger whose impressions are to be copied.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an electro-optical fingerprint copier that reduces the fingerprinting time by copying more than one finger at the same time.
This invention accomplishes these and other objects by providing an electro-optical copier having an array of concave-convex lenses to position the fingers. On the concave cylindrical face of a concave-convex lens a finger is positioned so as to expose the fingerprint. The concave-convex lens generates a fingerprint flat image which image enters a macrolens camera and by means of an automatic shutter it is recorded on a flat film chart surface. This operation is repeated simultaneously for a number of fingers, in an automatic mode and at the command of the operator. Also in order to record fingerprint images at several intervals during the fingerprinting process, the film chart positions automatically so as to expose unused chart zones under the shutters about to open. A new film chart is automatically fed into the camera to start the process again. Plane lenses may be used for flat fingerprinting.
These features eliminate the need for inking the fingertips of a person, the need for the person to rotate its fingers during the fingerprinting process and the continuous handling of charts during the process. All these contribute to speed up the fingerprinting process saving operator time and reducing operator training requirements.
When the fingerprinting process ends, a ready-to-use film chart having the recorded fingerprint impressions is released from the apparatus. A significant advantage of this chart is that later it may be recopied by ordinary means.
Furthermore, this apparatus may be arranged as a small portable unit with the finger positioning lenses, the selector keys, the film chart feeder and the film chart releaser conveniently installed at different sides of the unit. In this way the handling activity of the operator will not interfere with the hand movements of the fingerprinted person. Also, the area surrounding the finger positioning lenses from impressions caused by finger contact. This cleaning operation occurs immediately after the fingerprinting of a person ends.
Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detail description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.